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Could you someday be vaccinated against getting fat? Researchers are working on such a vaccine and, as this ScienCentral News video reports, results of tests done on rats show it seems to work.
Battle of the Bulge
Vaccines like a flu shot have long been used to help us ward off disease. But a group of scientists are now exploring using a vaccine to combat the effects of a hormone that appears to be a big enemy in the battle of the bulge. The vaccine, "acts against a hormone that's released by the stomach called ghrelin," says Eric Zorrilla of San Diego's Scripps Research Institute. He also says the hormone, "Normally is secreted to make us increase weight gain, to make us increase appetite, and to slow down our metabolism."
Anyone who has seriously dieted has experienced how the body seems to fight against losing weight and often quickly puts the pounds back on once the diet is over. That's part of your natural self-defense against starvation, and the hormone ghrelin appears to be involved in that process. Drugs have been introduced that can help us shed pounds, but they must be taken regularly and many have risks of serious side effects.
Zorrilla says scientists started suspecting ghrelin when studying people eating. He says, "Right before lunchtime, their ghrelin levels increased and then as you watched them, as they finished their meal, their ghrelin levels decreased."
When they tested their vaccine on rats, the vaccinated rats ate as much as other rats, but put on less fat than non-vaccinated rats fed the same diet.
Zorrilla says the vaccine uses a modified form of the ghrelin, and, "That modified form of ghrelin produces an immune response against the body's own form of ghrelin. It produces antibodies that bind to that ghrelin and then neutralizes it so that ghrelin can't be communicated to the brain."
Antibodies are a protein the body produces to neutralize what it believes is a foreign substance such as bacteria, a virus or even a transplanted organ.
Zorrilla adds, "The ghrelin keeps circulating in the blood stream but it can't ever actually get to the brain and send the signal of, 'I'm starving,' or in our case, 'I'm on a diet.'"
He also cautions that such a vaccine would not be for the casual dieter, noting, "It probably would only be somebody that's relatively obese. This isn't for somebody that has the pooch, that has a little bit of extra weight gain."
Zorrilla is encouraged that they've found a way to target the hormone, rather than the brain's receptors responsible for receiving a hormone like ghrelin. "It opens up a whole new area of the idea that you target hormones, not just by blocking their receptor (in the brain) but by producing antibodies against the hormone."
He says similar hormone blocking vaccines could be created to combat additions such as smoking and cocaine. He adds, "Antibodies have been produced against cocaine and against nicotine to prevent them from acting on the brain."
The researchers next want to repeat their tests with rats, but this time feed them food with the same characteristics as the fatty foods overweight people tend to eat.
They add that even if these early tests are successful, it will be several years before such a vaccine would actually be on the market.
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